Analysis of Macro - Page 2

One point about the 200 to 300 cap is that from a Blizzard point of view, they may fear the performance hit on computers by upping this cap and favor the safe side by giving a more even SC2 performance across all SC2 players' comps. This is purely from a game company standpoint.

First of all, I'd like to commend your in depth analysis and efforts in compiling actual data to support your theories. It made for a very interesting read.

However, I take issue with this particular conclusion:

On February 10 2011 01:58 LaLuSh wrote:With that said: what will larger maps achieve apart from increasing rush distances?

I would say absolutely nothing. What need do players have for 14 expansions in a game like Starcraft 2? Absolutely none.

I don't actually think this is the natural conclusion.

Having more than 3 mining bases surely strengthens the force of zerg's 'suicide missions'. Perhaps instead of throwing waves of roaches, the zerg could afford to throw waves of ultras.

The main point your charts fail to address is gas income. A zerg could happily spend 5 bases worth of gas while only mining 3 bases worth of minerals. Because of this, 'taking the map' is still definitely the ultimate goal of a macro zerg.

I think an increase in supply will heavily shift the balance in favor of Z (assuming no other significant changes and on a decent sized map), since it's the only race of the 3 in SC2 which has an economy that grows exponentially, so they can reach 4-5-6 bases far more quickly than T or P ever will due to larvae injects. I would say increase to 250 first, and see how it goes and make changes to macro mechanics if necessary.

One other key information that you left out is that even though mineral income between 3/4/5/6 bases is similar, the real benefit over having additional bases for Zerg is the additional gas income. Late game Z is all about massing up muta/baneling, broodlord-->ultra, infestors, etc. All of Zerg T3 is extremely gas intensive units. You cannot only look at mineral incomes then claim that bases beyond the 3rd provide no benefit.

Assuming you don't have to remake drones, the Zerg late game army consists of units have a mineral-gas ratio of less than 1.5 : 1. Theoretically, the optimal spread of 75 drones would be on 5 bases: 30 drones on gas + 45 drones on minerals. Also, by the time you're on 5 bases already, chances are your main is already mined out or nearing that, so this is decent enough on a medium sized map.

If you increased the supply, the optimal for 90 drones would be 6 bases: 36 on gas + 54 on minerals. 105 drones would be 7 bases: 42 on gas + 63 on minerals, etc.

Even in BW, it was extremely rare to see games that went beyond 5 base vs 5 base (or even maps that had enough bases to support it). The only exception I can think of is on certain maps where P takes the entire map (without saturation) simply because they know they'll lose bases 1 by 1 as the Terran comes out with his timing push.

Wow great right up. I agree with the 300 food cap and always wondered if that could help the game but never really put much thought into why.Very nice that, imo, you have seemed to get to the root (or at least one of them) of the problem, I hope someone at blizzard reads this and at least thinks about a change.

Another concept to explore would be variable number of mineral patches. I mean it's obvious, but simply adding an additional mineral patch to a spawn location would completely alter so many fundamental aspects of timing, as well as the entire range of macro mechanics you discuss, since the entire discussion treats 8 mineral patches as static (which it is in the current map pool).

Right now even pros have trouble spending all their minerals off of 3 base. Things like taking a 4th and 5th for purely gas have great benefits.

Then we can think how late games will pan out. What happens when that Protoss deathball rolls through? Can Zerg stop it in 1-2 fights? Maybe not. Maybe, the Zerg will need 6 bases, so that he EXPECTS to lose 1-2 before he can stop the Protoss deathball. Retreating workers to other numerous bases before they die will keep the Zerg in the game vs Protoss deathball.

Then, as said before, maps could account for the problem. The maps could be changed to have like, 5 mineral patches and 1 geyser on expansions.

Great OP. On the devil's advocate side though, I want to make three points.

I. Before messing with the game stats/mechanics in any way, my gut reaction is to see if maps can change anything. This is much harder now with the SC2 map system/ladder than the BW map free for all (largely because ladder is enforced, where it was very ignored in BW after about a year). However, if we can get new maps out, there are several variables to experiment with, such as:

- lowering/increasing mineral patch numbers- lowering/increasing mineral patch total resources- ditto both of these for geysers- the obvious map size and layout considerations

I'm not saying any of these are going to be necessary or "good" solutions - it may be best to let SC2 play out as a less macro-oriented game (though I feel this would cause it to lose some e-sport value). By "macro-oriented" I mean a game where being able to macro is a driving force behind the strategy.

II. For the sake of argument, I'm going to postulate that the difference in mining efficiency, while it exists, is in fact less extreme than you're making out. Your argument depends on a time per worker per mineral argument: even before reaching saturation a BW player could (by your hypothesis) achieve greater efficiency by spreading workers over more bases (patches). (Incidentally, this is supported by BGH, where the huge number of mineral patches = never need more than one base. Want, yes; need, not really.)

However, on a standard BW map I would have said you can cap workers/base at about 28-30, maybe one or two lower; your 22+gas isn't much lower than that. To test your theory, we need to look at not only when players expand (in worker count terms), but why - is worker count/saturation really the driving motive? For instance, possible BW counter examples: Zerg tend to expand to get the hatch up (and the extra gas in ZvZ); Protoss usually only FE by default against Zerg - but that's at least partly driven by the choke-ramp model of the standard map.

Something to think about - I'll try to get some hard numbers/examples.

III. SC2 has inherited the legacy and metagame of BW, but not its polish, precision, and 12 years of actual professional play. While most players coming from BW may see macro play as the ideal model, timings are still much less precise, all the quirks necessary to repel early attacks aren't worked out, etc. I have no hesitation in stating that if BW players could win most games in <10 minute, 1 base games, they would do so. But in fact, most players (professionals at least) know what turrets and units have to be where when against most attacks: defensively BW is much more accurate than SC2 at the moment. Even most "all-in" strategies are 50/50 propositions; at best 60/40. The BW metagame forces the BW player to play for position, or as Day[9] constantly tells people, "But what do I do later if this doesn't work?".

In other words, what I'm arguing is that we're in a position right now where the SC2 metagame is still focused on getting the right army to squash his army and then win because he's got no stuff left. Most big battles right now have a clear winner and loser. The BW metagame has passed that point (largely: timing attacks, timing all-ins, and cheese do still exist, but are not "standard"), and with proper play any two armies can generally stand up to each other in a more or less fair fight. When SC2 reaches that point (if it ever does, but I'm assuming it will), then macro play will really develop.

As an eyeball test, I'd just put it like this: what percentage of SC2 games have both players on 15+ production buildings, compared to BW? (I actually don't know; I also want to figure this out.)

out of curiosity are you [the op] majoring in some science-technology-engineering-math (STEM) related field, the OP was very well written/organized w/ graphs and almost a scientific approach was taken when evaluating the issue . and gz on the 1000th post ^

Very interesting read. It brought up some really good points especially about the map design and how it affects the way the game is played now. I really do think the maps are going to change a lot of what Starcraft 2 will evolve into. Now I don't tend to agree with not taking the extra bases than the three, because it is not only to do with numbers and the economic advantage. Theres other factors like giving you position in a key point on the map or mining yourself out on only 3 bases saturated with workers. There are also other factors such as being cost ineffective in your play, but having a large amount of bases because of it.

I do agree that it'd be much better if we could make more workers with a raised supply cap, which would be soooo awesome. I do feel pretty confident though in new maps making a huge difference in players to sway to the macro side of things. Great OP!

Like the OP, also think there is plenty of merit to what pilsken has to say regarding the importance of gas as a major reason to secure an expansion. I have a feeling this post will be an extremely productive one!

I trust that your findings are largely accurate but could you please comment a bit more about your testing methodology?

Regarding your comments on bigger maps, giving your findings - sure it wouldn't make an economic difference in the late game, but note that having more options means that it'll be easier to defend/hide a third expansion.

On February 10 2011 02:44 teamsolid wrote:I think an increase in supply will heavily shift the balance in favor of Z (assuming no other significant changes and on a decent sized map), since it's the only race of the 3 in SC2 which has an economy that grows exponentially, so they can reach 4-5-6 bases far more quickly than T or P ever will due to larvae injects.

That's a mis-statement, I agree that zerg's economies can grow faster, but the economy of all races grow essentially linearly on the number of bases which can grow exponentially. Then again exponentially is probably one of the most exaggeratedly used words.

Great post, but I really really really suspect that a 300 supply cap would be disastrous to the game in its current form. The reason is very simple: the efficiency of ranged units increases geometrically with number, where melee units is much less. Since there is a lack of gameplay options to reverse this basic reality by outplaying an opponent with superior skill (arguably only the forcefield can do this efficiently), it is a bad idea at this point.

There may be other approaches to this economic problem. For instance, a zerg analog to mules could be a hive tech upgrade that reduces drones to one half supply. *This is just an example*

On February 10 2011 02:43 lac29 wrote:One point about the 200 to 300 cap is that from a Blizzard point of view, they may fear the performance hit on computers by upping this cap and favor the safe side by giving a more even SC2 performance across all SC2 players' comps. This is purely from a game company standpoint.

Perhaps, although having played fastest quite a bit I doubt this really is that much of a problem as that map has a 300 supply cap and is almost always 4v4 with absurd macro.